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Since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, scholars and practitioners have put much effort into testing effective advertising strategies for COVID-19 vaccinations. Guided by humor theories, this study aimed to examine (1) the effect of humor on persuading COVID-19 vaccination and (2) the moderating role of trust in government for the unvaccinated population. Across two studies (college students and general adult populations), for lower trust in government individuals, through greater public service advertisement (PSA) processing depth and believability, there was a higher vaccination intention after the humor (non-humor) advertisement. For higher trust in government individuals, there was evidence that the vaccination intention was lowered after the humor (vs. non-humor) message through lowered PSA processing depth and believability. This study expands humor theory into testing COVID-19 vaccination messages while considering an individual psychological factor, trust in the government, that has emerged as an essential determinant to COVID-19 messaging. The contributions to COVID-19 vaccination advertising strategy and advertising to the unvaccinated population, in general, are discussed.
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Background: Although our understanding of immunopathology in the risk and severity of COVID-19 disease is evolving, a detail of immune response in long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection remains unclear. Recently, few studies have detailed the immune and cytokine profiles associated with PASC. However, dysregulation of immune system driving pulmonary PASC is still largely unknown. Method(s): To characterize the immunological features of PPASC, we performed droplet-based scRNA-sequencing using 10X genomics to study the transcriptomic profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from participants naive to SARS-CoV-2 (NP, n=2) and infected with SARS-CoV-2 with chronic pulmonary symptoms (PPASC, n=2). Result(s): Analysis of more than 34,000 PBMCs by integrating our dataset with previously reported control datasets generated cell distribution and identified 11 immune cell types based on canonical gene expression. The proportion of myeloid-lineage cells (CD14+monocyte, CD16+monocyte, and dendritic cells) and platelets were increased in PPASC compared with those of NP. Specifically, PPASC displayed up-regulation of VEGFA and transcription factors, such as ATF2, ELK, and SMAD in myeloid-lineage cells. Also, TGF-beta and WNT signaling pathways were up-regulated in these cell population. Cell-cell interaction analysis identified that myeloid-lineage cells in PPASC participated in regulation of fibrosis and immune response, such as VEGFA (increased) and MIF (decreased) interactions. Conclusion(s): Together, this study provides high-resolution insights into immune landscape in PPASC. Our results emphasize differences in myeloid lineage-mediated fibrosis and immunity between PPASC and NP, suggesting they could act as potential pathological drivers of PPASC. (Figure Presented).
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Junior Physician Investigator Award Recipient Purpose of study Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus- 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Convalescent plasma obtained from recovered persons was used for previous respiratory pandemics. Convalescent plasma with severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies (CCP) was proposed as an option that may hold promise as treatment for COVID-19. Our aim was to retrospectively evaluate the efficacy of CCP treatment of patients with severe to life-threatening COVID-19 hospitalized at Montefiore Medical Center (MMC) in the Bronx, NY between April 13 to May 4, 2020. Methods used We administered CCP as part of the Mayo Clinic expanded access investigational new drug (IND) program for hospitalized patients. We compared the mortality and clinical outcome of 73 patients with COVID-19 who received 200 mL of CCP with a Spike protein IgG titer >=1:2,430 (median 1:47,385) within 72 hours of admission to 1:1 propensity score-matched controls. Matching criteria for controls were age, sex, body mass index, race, ethnicity, comorbidities, week of admission, oxygen requirement, D-dimer, lymphocyte counts, corticosteroids, and anticoagulation use (figure 1). We additionally measured Spike protein IgG and neutralizing antibody titer in CCP and pre- and post-transfusion Spike protein IgG, IgM and IgA titer in CCP recipients. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality at day 28 post-CCP. The secondary outcomes were improvement in oxygenation status or mortality at day 28 post-CCP. Exploratory outcomes were associations between pre-CCP SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers and mortality at day 28. Summary of results There was no difference in mortality or oxygenation between CCP recipients and controls at day 28. When stratified by age, compared to matched controls, CCP recipients < 65 years had 4-fold lower mortality and 4-fold lower deterioration in oxygenation or mortality at day 28 (figure 2, 3). There was no association between CCP IgG or neutralizing antibody titer and clinical outcome. For CCP recipients, pre-transfusion Spike protein IgG, IgM and IgA titers were associated with mortality at day 28 in univariate analyses but not in multivariable analyses. Pre-transfusion Spike protein IgG titer was significantly correlated with Ddimer and detected viral load measured by cycle threshold (Ct) value of nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 reverse-transcriptase- polymerase-chain-reaction (figure 4). No adverse effects of CCP were observed. Conclusions We report that CCP administration within 72 hours of hospitalization demonstrated a possible signal of reduced mortality in patients < 65 years. Pre-transfusion IgG titer may be a proxy for disease severity that may be useful in identifying those who are more likely to respond to CCP. Data from controlled trials is needed to validate this finding and establish the effect of ageing on CCP efficacy. (Figure Presented).
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The coronavirus has caused unprecedented damage to the hospitality industry that cannot be compared to those caused by previous global crises. This study hypothesized that employee burnout and turnover intent can vary depending on their perceptions of workaholism, with the assumption that workaholism's negative impact differs across generations. This study demonstrated that workaholism among hotel employees tends to increase their burnout and turnover intent. The examination of the intergenerational moderating role in the relationship between the influence of workaholism on burnout and turnover intent revealed that compared to Generations X and Y, Generation Z has a stronger negative relationship with workaholism.
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Background: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, large-scale vaccinations have been performed worldwide without sufficient verification of safety profiles. So far, little is known about skin manifestations following COVID-19 vaccination in Korean patients. Objective: We investigated the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients who had skin manifestations following COVID-19 vaccination in Korea. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed me data of 123 patients that presented with skin manifestations within 1 month after COVID-19 vaccination from two tertiary referral hospitals in Korea. The types of COVID-19 vaccinations administered to the patients, demographics, comorbidities, and clinical course of the patients were obtained from the data. Statistical analyses of the extracted data were performed using Microsoft Excel. Results: Skin manifestations following COVID-19 vaccination were mostly observed in patients in their 40s (23.6%), according to our data. Urticarial eruption was the most common manifestation, followed by macular rash (17.1%) and papulosquamous eruption (17.1%). Notably, 70% of the patients showed delayed reactions. More than half of the patients showed a good prognosis, and their symptoms were relieved with conservative treatment, including corti-costeroids and antihistamines, even after additional vaccination. Conclusion: We statistically analyzed the prevalence and characteristics of skin manifestations after COVID-19 vaccination. Urticarial eruptions are the most common skin manifestations associated with the COVID-19 vacci¬nation. We believe that this real-world retrospective study will provide valuable information for doctors who treat patients with skin manifestations after COVID-19 vaccination by providing real-world experience in Korea. (Korean J Dermatol 2022;60(9):576~584). © 2022 Korean Dermatological Association. All rights reserved.
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Purpose: Childhood obesity has become a social problem due to the social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This study aimed to identify the dietary problems of obese children through various dietary assessment methods and to confirm the usefulness of each method. Methods: The subjects were 88 students in the 4th to 6th grade of elementary school who participated in the nutrition camp organised by the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, 2020. To evaluate dietary problems and assess diet quality, 24-hour meal records, monthly food intake frequency, and Dietary Screening Test (DST) data were analyzed. Results: Of the subjects, 15.7%, 30.3%, and 53.9% were normal weight, overweight, and obese, respectively. The average age was 11.77 ± 0.77 years and the average body mass index was 23.96 ± 3.01 kg/m2. It was observed from the 24-hour meal record method that the overweight and obese subject groups consumed fewer green vegetables (p < 0.001) and white vegetables (p < 0.01) than the normal weight group. In the monthly food intake frequency method, the consumption of ramen (p < 0.01), snacks (p < 0.05), and sausages (p < 0.05) were high in the obese group, and that of anchovies, broccoli, and sweet pumpkin was high in the normal group (p < 0.05). The comparative data from the DST revealed that the overweight and obese groups had less vegetable intake than the normal weight group (p < 0.01) and had higher intakes of dairy products, fast food, and sweet snacks (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The usefulness of each method in the dietary evaluation of obese children was confirmed. To address the problem of obesity, it is necessary to evaluate the dietary problem and approach it with a customized solution tailor-made for the individual subject. © 2023 The Korean Nutrition Society This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent need to shift between face-to-face, online, and blended learning caused considerable disruption to student engagement and the workload of academics. Drawing on a Brand Management course (final year undergraduate) in a UK university, this study discusses the students' perception of, and reflection on, a novel method of assessment that we have termed dispersed assessment. This is defined as multiple credit-bearing tasks that are spread throughout the teaching period, are related to taught learning materials and sessions, assist in completing a related final assessment task, and are evidenced in the submission of the final task to limit additional burden on students and markers. Based on scholarly work on assessment and student engagement, we used Leximancer-assisted thematic analysis to examine the data from three focus groups and students' written reflections (n = 99). Findings show that dispersed assessment significantly enhanced student engagement, without overburdening students or increasing the marking workload. This novel method of assessment helped nurture learning communities, increase motivation, and reduce procrastination. Regarding policy, we recommend the implementation of dispersed assessment to encourage active and continuous student engagement and improve student experience. Practical examples are offered for the implementation of dispersed assessment using VLE technologies. © 2023 The Authors
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Background and objective: As the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the entire world and people found themselves spending more time at home, many households began gardening, and purchased various ornamental plants. Many cultivars of Hibiscus syriacus are grown for their showy flowers, or used as landscape shrubs. H. syriacus is generally known for its high rate of asexual reproduction. However, it is known that the effectiveness of propagation by cuttings can have big differences depending on internal and external factors. This study was conducted to determine the effects of optimal rooting bed soil composition and auxin on the rooting of H. syriacus cuttings. Methods: Cuttings used in this study were from 17 cultivars. As types of bed soil for propagation by cutting, gardening bed soil, sand, mixed soil 1, and mixed soil 2 were used, and the plant growth regulators of IBA and NAA were applied at 500, 1000, and 1500 mg⋅L-1 concentrations. Results: The rooting rate and number of roots were highest with the combination of perlite and vermiculite. On the other hand, the gardening bed soil showed an extremely low rooting percentage. The root growth was improved in most cultivars when treated by plant growth regulator. The highest rooting rate was verified at IBA 500 mg⋅L-1 treatment while the number of roots and root length showed good result in IBA 1500 mg⋅L-1 treatment. Conclusion: In many cultivars, it was observed that the rooting rate and number of roots differed depending on the bed soil. The most suitable bed soil for the cuttings was a mixture of peat moss and vermiculite, and it was possible to increase the efficiency through treatment with a growth regulator, and the efficiency of IBA was better than that of NAA. However, it is necessary to identify which detailed growth regulator treatment is suitable for the root development of each cultivar, because plant growth regulator was less effective and even problematic in some cultivars. © 2022 by the Society for People, Plants, and Environment.
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Aim of the study: Effective CPR training is important for provision of high-quality bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). However, the COVID-19 pandemic has hindered conventional face-to-face CPR training. To overcome the limitation, we developed a distance learning CPR training course (HEROS-Remote) that utilized a smartphone app and a delivery-collection system for CPR training manikins. The objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of the HEROSRemote course by comparing chest compression quality between trainees who participated in the conventional CPR training (C-training) and HEROS-Remote course (R-training). Method(s): The non-inferiority trial included adult nonhealthcare providers who applied for CPR training. Both groups underwent 2-minute post-training chest compression test followed by course survey on trainees' course and delivery system satisfaction. The primary outcome of the study was mean chest compression depth during the 2-minute post-training test. Result(s): A total of 180 trainees were enrolled with 90 trainees for each training group. There was no statistically significant difference in chest compression depth between R-training and C-training groups (67.4 vs. 67.8, p=0.78) as well as proportion of adequate chest compression depth, chest compression rate, proportion of chest compressions with complete chest recoil and chest compression score (90.8 vs. 92.1, p=0.69;110.8 vs. 110.4, p=0.60;89.8 vs. 94.7, p=0.05;92.7 vs. 95.5, p=0.16, respectively). In the R-training group, 90.0% of the trainees were satisfied with the course, 96% responded that the delivery system was satisfactory and convenient. Conclusion(s): The R-training course was noninferior to the C-training course. The distance learning CPR training method utilizing smartphone app and mannikin delivery-collection system had high user satisfaction and was logistically feasible.
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Background: There are limited data on factors predicting severe coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) in patients with asthma. Thus, we aimed to evaluate factors related to severe COVID-19. Method: The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) provided researchers with an anonymized national cohort of 5,628 patients with confirmed COVID-19, who had completed treatment or quarantine as of April 30, 2020. We evaluated factors associated with severe COVID-19, defined as cases requiring oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment in addition to those who died after a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. Results: Of the 5,628 patients confirmed with COVID-19, 128 (2.3%) had asthma. Among the 128 asthma patients, 32 (25%) had severe COVID-19 and 96 (75%) had non-severe COVID-19. Among asthmatic patients, those with severe COVID-19 were significantly older, had more dyspnea and fever, more comorbidities, and lower lymphocyte and platelet counts than those with non-severe COVID-19. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 6.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.18- 41.81), low lymphocyte (aOR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.86- 0.97), and low platelet (aOR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.98- 0.99) counts were independently associated with severe COVID-19. Conclusion: In conclusion, among asthmatic patients, those with severe COVID-19 were significantly older, had more dyspnea and fever, more comorbidities including COPD, heart failure, and malignancies, and lower lymphocyte and platelet counts than those with non-severe COVID-19. Of these, COPD, low lymphocyte count, and low platelet count were independently associated with severe COVID-19.
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Real-Time vital-sign from patients are important information that implies the current health status and behavior of patients. Recently, Mishra et al. [1] have shown that COVID-19 can be detected by analyzing the patient's vital signs and behaviors, i.e., heart rates and steps, using anomaly detection techniques. This paper presents a medical IoT platform, called MiT Eco-platform, which is designed to gather patient's physiological data through a smartwatch and to increase the efficiency of data labeling for building an AI model for medical diagnosis and treatment. Furthermore, we present a real-time COVID-19 detection approach advanced from the approach of using anomaly detection Mishra et al. [1] that will be run on MiT Eco-platform. As a result, we show performance evaluation results of preemptively detecting the COVID-19 infection for the same samples of the COVID-19 infected ones of Mishra et al.[1], comparing with the anomaly detection approach of Mishra et al.[1]. We expect that physiological data through smartwatches on daily life can be continuously gathered and effectively labeled by the MiT Eco-platform for various studies in medical area. © 2021 Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.
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Lecture: As most people expect, the COVID-19 pandemic will change our life radically. One of the directions is expected to minimize off-line contacts in daily lives and healthcare is surely not the exception. Big hospitals, which are centralized systems evolved to deliver healthcare most effectively, can become the media of the spread of diseases in some cases and the adoption of a decentralized healthcare system will be a helpful strategy to prevent it. This strategy can be implemented through a smart healthcare system, and it will be one more necessity of a smart healthcare system in our society. Smart healthcare, which will be delivered mainly through online contact, is a very comprehensive concept enabling otherwise not possible healthcare such as health monitoring using life-log data from the wearable device and far beyond the online consultation with a doctor. Although there will be many social, ethical, and technical challenges for smart healthcare, the discussion today will be limited to two challenges, interoperability and protecting the data subjects' rights. Smart healthcare needs to collect and process comprehensive health information from a vast number of data subjects during its development and delivery and the data subjects' rights are highly vulnerable during these processes. Collecting and exchanging health information from various sources such as hospitals, clinics, smartwatches, and so on, inevitably raises the issue of interoperability of the data from different sources. The implementation of smart healthcare requires technical solutions to both challenges. General Data Protection Regulation, recently issued by the EU, deals the data subjects' rights very seriously, such as the right to be informed, the right of access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restrict processing, the right to data portability, the right to object, and the rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. Technical innovations required to protect these data subjects' rights will be discussed here. Compared to traditional healthcare which mostly dealt with medical data generated within the healthcare facility itself, smart healthcare requires health data beyond the healthcare facilities. Not to mention the life-log data from different wearable devices, even the medical data from different hospitals are not interoperable. Although many health information standards have been proposed, such as Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SMOMED CT), Logical Observation Identifier Name Code (LOINC), Health Level 7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (HL7 FHIR), and so on, the adoption of these standards in hospital information system in Korea has been very slow. This low adoption of health information standards in our hospital information system obstructs the so-called, meaningful use of electronic medical records. The necessity of adopting health information standards will be refreshed today. Smart healthcare requires the active participation of health consumers and active participation of health consumers requires their health literacy. Health literacy of health consumers will be fostered by innovative technical aids such as data visualization, the decision support system for consumers, and more. Health literacy will the most powerful driving force of smart healthcare implementation.
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INTRODUCTION: An unexpected resurgence of pertussis cases and infant deaths was observed in some countries that had switched to acellular pertussis vaccines in the primary immunisation schedule. In response to the outbreaks, maternal pertussis vaccination programmes in pregnant women have been adopted worldwide, including the USA in 2011 and the UK in 2012. Following the success of the programme in England, we evaluated the health and economic impact of stopping versus continuing the maternal pertussis immunisation to inform public health policy making. METHODS: We used a mathematical model to estimate the number of infant hospitalisations and deaths related to pertussis in England over 2019-2038. Losses in quality-adjusted life years, QALYs, were considered for infants (aged 0-2 months) who survived or died from pertussis, bereaved parents (of infants who died from pertussis), and women with pertussis (aged 20-44 years). Direct medical costs to the National Health Service included infant hospitalisations, maternal vaccinations, and disease in women. Costs and QALYs were discounted at 3.5%. Changes in the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, ICER, were explored in sensitivity analyses. RESULTS: The model supports continuing the maternal pertussis immunisation programme as a cost-effective intervention at an ICER of £14,500/QALY (2.5% and 97.5%-quantile: £7,300/QALY to £32,400/QALY). Stopping versus continuing the maternal programme results in an estimated mean of 972 (range 582 to 1489) versus 308 (184 to 471) infant hospitalisations annually. Results were most sensitive to the number of hospitalisations and deaths when stopping the maternal programme. At a cost-effectiveness threshold of £30,000/QALY, the probability of the maternal programme being cost-effective was 96.2%. CONCLUSION: Our findings support continuing the maternal pertussis vaccination programme as otherwise higher levels of disease activity and infant mortality are expected to return. These results have led policy makers to decide to continue the maternal programme in the UK routine immunisation schedule.